In other words

To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining, in the days of our children, the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed. ~Theodore Roosevelt

Total life upheaval

Katie is actually not dead. Nor is her blog. But life has intervened and things have been happening and things are lively and Katie feels just about dead from all of the lively. Katie sincerely desires a vacation in a tropical setting, swilling pretty rum drinks sporting tiny colorful umbrellas. Being waited on hand and foot would be really fine, too. Inasmuch as this isn’t going to happen any time soon....

Sigh.

I am selling my house. Or, at least, I will attempt to sell my house after I’ve whipped it into shape. I made this decision about a month ago. I lined up a realtor whom I adore. She has been a great coach giving me ideas about what I need to do and what isn’t so terribly important. However, the To Do list vastly outweighs the What’s Not Important list. What I have been doing is filling a dumpster with 18 years worth of STUFF. We all collect stuff. I had a basement filled with stuff. And closets. And cupboards. And drawers. And stuff shoved under sofas and chairs. If you’ve lived anywhere for more than 10 years, you probably know what I mean. When I move, I will downsize slightly. I aim for about 660 square feet of living space. So, I needed to get rid of a lot of stuff. And what I decided from the start...I am not packing and moving anything that I do not LOVE. Consequently, I filled a 20’ x 8’ x 5’ dumpster to the brim in the last three weeks.

And that’s aside from the vast quantity of STUFF reserved for a large yard sale in a couple of weeks.

What amused me most? People coming into my driveway to dumpster dive. People looking for useable items, or, in one woman’s case, items she could sell in her shop. I had to tell people to leave. Lots of nails and broken glass in the dumpster. Not a good idea to have strangers exposing themselves to injury in that manner.

A couple of weekends ago, my lad came home for the big weekend of emptying out the basement. He wondered how I felt about tossing out the bulk of my memories and evidence of a life previously lived. I said it was a little bit difficult, but I am not so invested in this stuff that I need to keep it. He whipped out his mobile phone and said, “Let’s take pictures of this stuff. That way you can always look at it and keep your memories without having to keep the stuff.” And that’s what we did. What a Great Idea!!

Now I am carpet cleaning, spackling walls, and doing all the little repairs that we all put off indefinitely. Well, in real life, “indefinitely” eventually has a terminus. So I’m doing the repairs now and wishing like heck that I’d done them a long time ago. Spackling and repairing and painting and replacing and whatnot. My days are about 14 hours long. From early morning til late in the evening, I’m working my butt off. We do what we have to do.

The thing that kills me...I’m making my house absolutely lovely for someone else. It’s funny, we live in our houses for years and years and fall blind to the most obvious blemishes. When it comes time to sell, we begin looking as though through a stranger’s eyes. All of a sudden our wonderful comfy home looks a bit down in the mouth and tatty.

Today, I did a pint’s worth of spackling. Tomorrow I’ll sand it and start the painting. I hate painting. It heads the list of things I dislike most about homeowning. This is where I desperately wish for a magic wand. Dream on, Kate.

I hope to have the house ready to list with my realtor by next weekend. I’m not entirely sure that’s going to happen, but either next weekend or the weekend after. This is an adventure in an iffy market. My realtor is quite positive. My town has been doing very well with real estate sales this year. But I do need to make my house as irresistible as possible. Keeping fingers crossed.

And wishing to wake up tomorrow in a tropical paradise. Just 24 hours. That’s all I need! Then I’ll paint without a whimper. What are the chances?

Posted by Kate on 08/21/12 at 10:16 PM

Comments

Hey Alan. House still not on the market. Thinking next Tuesday. Realtor is away for the week. Gives me time to do the last minute things. Was out doing landscaping things, this evening, that I’ve put off doing forever.

Fun thing...I’m learning that my neighbors really like me. That sounds kind of pathetic, but, for the better part of 18 years, we’ve lived in comity without actually saying much to each other. Now they are offering all sorts of help and physical labor. And delivering hugs and offering wishes that I’d change my mind and stay. Just bowls me over. Now I’m not sure I want to leave.

Actually, can’t wait til this is over. Moving house is hard work. But I’m done with home ownership for a while. Don’t want the responsibility of fixing all the things that break with alarming regularity.

Posted by Kate on 09/27 at 09:54 PM

No time no read! I was pleasantly surprised to see a recent post when I dropped by - I’ve tried several times to force myself to start blogging again, and when I do I look through my blogroll and make random visits. Good to see others are still around.

We went through what you’re going through a few years ago - in 2009 and again in 2010. Our house never sold, and in the end we decided we just liked where it was, and I liked my yard and gardens, so we decided to stay and remodel the kitchen. Wasn’t cheap, but it was much less than anything we had seen that we liked. I hope, whatever you end up doing, you’ll end up as satisfied with your choice as we are with ours.